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Sunday, January 8, 2012

The boy who can never grow old


 I was feeling really stressed with my study work and I wanted to put my mind to a lighter moment and take a break. Facebook was boring me. For some reason I had the idea of searching a very odd phrase in my Google search bar. “People who never get old”; May be I was having second thoughts to the existence of Peter Pan.;). The second item from my search list occupied me. I opened the link. I wanted to see someone who never got old but instead I saw someone who is very sick and would die young, a boy who can never get old. It’s not that he couldn't grow old it was that he would never get a chance to!

It was on youtube,a Channel five documentary "Extraordinary people: the Boy who will never grow old". The boy’s name was Stuart Wickison, he was 19 when they took that video. He was suffering from a genetic disorder called the Duchene Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a genetic condition that affects only boys. They're born able-bodied and only find out the full prognosis in their teens. DMD is caused by mutations of the gene which produces dystrophin, a protein essential for the healthy development of muscles in the body. Without it all muscles gradually cease to function causing gradual paralysis.

Stuart in his wheel chair
The narrator says one line which hit my mind so hard, “Although his body is failing him, his mind is focused on living!” I felt so bad for the boy when I heard that line, there are many young people his age who give up on life without an effort and a dream, and there he was, the boy who had a dream to become an artist and to make his work speak a message of strength, that weaknesses can be overcome but no time to live and to get old. Sadly, in August 2011 the boy was found dead in a lake. It is said he drove his wheelchair into the lake and committed a suicide.

Stuart had said “No one knows the meaning of life, you are born to die. What about the in-between?? What about the living?? Well.. I am here for that, not the rest.  I am not here to suffer.... I am here to make an impact!” Hats off for that boy’s words. However disabled his body was, he had a spirit to fight for his dreams, may be he didn’t live up to his words but those words meant a lot coming from a guy who was as much as a non-living object in a corner without the help of his wheelchair. Stuart gave me the feel of harbouring a dream, a dream to live up to. He rekindled the power of spirit for hard work. With such a little time to live, he made me realize of al the due dates in my life, the date of my next assignment, the due date of those vivas and those exams coming up, of course i am not going to die, but i can only live and work hard before that date comes. I can do nothing after that moment passes, it will be like i died as than examinee and can never ever live to give it again!!!

You might say I am getting paranoid watching that kid’s documentary, but it is just that everything has an expiry date and we should realize that and make the most out of everything! thank you Stuart. May your soul R.I.P.

P. S. The Documentary is in three parts on youtube.
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